The current mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, a representative of the opposition Labor Party, won the mayoral election of the British capital for the third time. As a result of Thursday’s vote, he received 61.2% of the vote, while his closest rival, ruling Conservative Party candidate Susan Hall, received 15.1% of votes, the BBC reported.
As a result of local elections held throughout England, Labor significantly strengthened its position.
Khan was first elected mayor of London in 2016 and will remain in office for a further four years.
Thus, he became the first mayor of London in history to be elected to this position for the third time.
The first election for the mayor of London took place in 2000 – and was won by Labor Party representative Ken Livingstone, who also remained in this position after the 2004 election. In 2008, Boris Johnson became mayor of London, who was replaced by Sadiq Khan in 2016. Then he became the first Muslim to head a European capital.
The previous London mayoral election took place in the spring of 2021. Typically, the capital’s mayor is elected for four years, but Khan’s previous term was extended by a year due to the cancellation of elections in 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The now 53-year-old London mayor’s parents, Amunallah and Sehroon, emigrated to Britain from Pakistan in 1970, shortly before he was born. He is the fifth of eight children in the family (seven sons and a daughter).
His father worked as a bus driver for 25 years, was a member of a trade union and, according to Sadik’s recollections, made good money. And his mother was a seamstress and housewife and, unlike his father, earned little.
In the family, the children were raised in the spirit of respect for Islam. Sadiq considers himself a Muslim and has always recognized the importance of his faith.